I have a certain classification when it comes to homophobes I talk about.

Peter LaBarbera is fun to laugh at. Matt Barber is a useful idiot. Paul Cameron is stewing in a sauce of irrelevancy. Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown are fishes who soon will be hooked by their own carelessness. Peter Sprigg and Tony Perkins are bumbling fools.

But when it comes to Scott Lively, I think of crosses, garlic, and holy water.

FRC is not as blatantly hateful as the Klan, but that makes the organization more dangerous. Under the veneer of respectability and morality, FRC either passes off junk science or presents social science in a wrong manner to deliberately smear the lgbt community and make us appear - inaccurately - as a public health risk and a threat to religious liberty.

2. And then there is the consistent way I always seem to pick on anti-gay spokesman Matt Barber (or as I call him, my pet). Hey! It's not my fault that he seems to always be talking about gay sex and then implying that God has led him to do such like he did in the post Matt Barber - 'Homosexuals are picking on me!'

All I did was make the observation that if Barber obsesses about gay sex because of God, then God has a warped sense of humor.

The Military's Secret Shame - Before the religious right has a chance to exploit this article about male-on-male rape in the military, check out this passage from it - "While many might assume the perpetrators of such assaults are closeted gay soldiers, military experts and outside researchers say assailants usually are heterosexual. Like in prisons and other predominantly male environments, male-on-male assault in the military, experts say, is motivated not by homosexuality, but power, intimidation, and domination. Assault victims, both male and female, are typically young and low-ranking; they are targeted for their vulnerability. "

Rep. Allen B. West (R-Florida) belled the cat neatly during a hearing last Friday on the military's breakneck pace in implementing the new lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) law.

Mr. West, whose 20-plus years in the U.S. Army included combat commands, noted that he and others at Fort Bragg had to endure "sensitivity training" in the 1990s. It didn't enhance the "warrior ethos," he recalled.

What became clear at the hearing of the House Armed Services Committee's Personnel Subcommittee chaired by Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) is that the Pentagon is forging into unknown territory, driven by political correctness, not military need.

Mr. Wilson, Mr. West and Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colorado) were openly skeptical about how honest the process has been. Mr. West noted that political correctness can prove costly, as when commanders ignored Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's plunge into radical Islam before the Fort Hood shootings. Likewise, people are afraid to share qualms over the LGBT law, Mr. West said.

I'll say one thing for Knight. What he doesn't have in truth, he makes up in creativity.

In reality, according to the site Equality Matters, the Republicans were hoping to use the hearings to find something - anything - that they could use to delay the repeal of DADT. And they couldn't find a thing:

Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Clifford Stanley said he saw "no issues or problems" with the repeal of DADT, which is expected to be completed by midsummer. "All is going well," Stanley said.

Republicans weren't pleased.

Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA) attempted to make the case that under DADT gay and lesbian service members were being discharged for violating standards of conduct rather than for simply being gay and that training for repeal was costing the military too much money. He was rebuked, not once but twice, by Vice Admiral William E. Gortney, who testified that the majority of soldiers discharged under DADT had not violated standards of conduct and that training had only cost about $10,000, a minuscule amount considering the military's annual budget.

Extremely embarrassing to Republican efforts to derail the DADT repeal was the following exchange between Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA) and Vice Admiral William E. Gortney. Scott was trying to prove that gay soldiers had been discharged for violating standards of conduct rather than their sexual orientation.

Needless to say, he wasn't successful:

Transcript:

SCOTT: Did you discharge him from the service because he was gay or because he violated a standard of conduct?

GORTNEY: Because he was gay.

SCOTT: He did not violate a standard of conduct before he was dismissed?

GORTNEY: He did not.

SCOTT: That's not the answer I thought you would give to be honest with you, Admiral.

From what I understand there will be another hearing today. I'm hoping that Republicans will end up with more egg on their faces, while Knight will continue to sing their praises from whatever alternate universe he is viewing the hearings.

About Me

Alvin McEwen is 46-year-old African-American gay man who resides in Columbia, SC.
McEwen's blog, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, and writings have been mentioned by Americablog.com, Goodasyou.org, People for the American Way, PageOneQ.com, The Washington Post, Raw Story, The Advocate, Media Matters for America, Crooksandliars.com, Thinkprogress.org, Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, Melissa Harris-Perry, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, The Washington Blade, and Foxnews.com.
In addition, he is also a past contributor to Pam's House Blend,Justice For All, LGBTQ Nation, and Alternet.org. He is a present contributor to the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post,
He is the 2007 recipient of the Harriet Daniels Hancock Volunteer of the Year Award and the 2010 recipient of the Order of the Pink Palmetto from the SC Pride Movement as well as the 2009 recipient of the Audre Lorde/James Baldwin Civil Rights Activist Award from SC Black Pride. In addition, he is a three-time nominee of the Ed Madden Media Advocacy Award from SC Pride.